The purpose of my research paper is to examine the evolution of female education in America during the 19th century. In my understanding that this is a broad topic, I want to focus on the basic educational opportunities awarded to daughters of wealthy and middle class white families. My paper will take a look at the arguments both for and against furthering female education, with a special focus on how education was marketed to appeal to a conservative idea of Republican motherhood and the women’s domestic sphere. In order to contextualize this change in educational standards, I plan to draw brief examples from the 17th, but mostly the 18th century, regarding what subjects and methods of teaching were to be expected for girls that were allowed to attend school. In addition, should space allow, I’d like to also highlight some key women who helped to further the educational reformation, or more generally how female teachers and schoolmistresses did just that.
Just a general note, I do have many more (potential) sources than the ones listed below. These are just the ones I had time to research and take notes on thoroughly. I intend to have at least a few more …show more content…
In it, it shows that girl’s writing was not private, as evidence by the fact that she addresses and shows her diaries to her mother, and discusses how Anna attends three different schools in order to learn to write, sew, and dance. Anna had to attend writing school after the boys had left, an example I can use to show that girls were not considered equal to boys even if they receiving comparable educations, and how a push for girls to be humble led to Anna to talk down on her own writing and calling it useless gibberish. In this way, even if girls were educated, they weren’t encouraged to use their education for anything other than other’s benefits, and it took little to no priority over their domestic duties and
Just a general note, I do have many more (potential) sources than the ones listed below. These are just the ones I had time to research and take notes on thoroughly. I intend to have at least a few more …show more content…
In it, it shows that girl’s writing was not private, as evidence by the fact that she addresses and shows her diaries to her mother, and discusses how Anna attends three different schools in order to learn to write, sew, and dance. Anna had to attend writing school after the boys had left, an example I can use to show that girls were not considered equal to boys even if they receiving comparable educations, and how a push for girls to be humble led to Anna to talk down on her own writing and calling it useless gibberish. In this way, even if girls were educated, they weren’t encouraged to use their education for anything other than other’s benefits, and it took little to no priority over their domestic duties and